The Doctor Will See You Now — On Skype
(Bala Cynwyd, PA) It’s 9 o’clock in the evening and Dr. Sherman Leis is consulting with a patient. That alone would be nothing out of the ordinary for Dr. Leis, except that his patient is sitting in her home in Dubai and Dr. Leis is comfortably in his suburban Philadelphia office, several thousand miles away. This particular transgender patient is planning top and bottom surgery to transition male-to-female. Today’s consult, via Skype and the Internet, easily and inexpensively brings the two together at the early phases leading to gender confirmation surgery in Philadelphia in a couple of months.
Observed Dr. Leis, “Thanks to services like Skype, more patients around the world now have access to leading doctors and the finest quality medical care anywhere in the world. By cutting down the time, the best care becomes more affordable too.”
Today, Dr. Sherman Leis, transgender surgeon of world renown and founder of The Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery, one of the leading resources for transgender surgery and medical support in the United States, has a global following made even more accessible thanks to the Internet and services like Skype, Viber, WhatsApp, FaceTime and others. For his Dubai patient, prior to surgery, Dr. Leis will receive blood work and medical history, together with complete psychiatric evaluations from the patient’s local medical team. He is even available to consult with them professionally online. Through Skype, Dr. Leis examines the patient and makes preliminary notes about the upcoming surgery while determining the patient’s readiness for the surgery.
Said Dr. Leis, “It was not too long ago that international patients had to commit to spending a month or so in Philadelphia in order to be available for the entire transitioning process, from preliminary examinations through recovery. Today, we can obtain preliminary consults and pre-operative testing online and analyze these results, so that the patient only needs to spend a week or two away from home, depending on which procedure they have done.”
Even in recovery, Dr. Leis can monitor the patient over Skype. After a brief recovery stay in the Philadelphia Transgender Center’s comfortable lodgings which are on site, Dr. Leis can even monitor the final stages of recovery on Skype, email patient photos, and communicate directly with the patient’s local medical team, advising them on any concerning issues. “Digital communications actually gives the patient more one-on-one time with me, their surgeon,” said Leis.
“Many patients like to get home as soon as possible. If there is a way I can make a patient more comfortable, I’ll do it,” said Dr. Leis.
Category: Transgender Community News
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